Lucy Connolly should never have been arrested, charged or imprisoned

The Psychological, Legal and Political

James Esses’ Substack goes out to thousands of subscribers in over 80 countries. Become a paid subscriber to support James’ investigative journalism, gain access to his full archive of articles and have the ability to post comments and join the conversation.

---

The Psychological

Context (both psychological and social) is key to understanding why someone has acted as they have and what the motivation is behind their actions.

Lucy Connolly clearly cared deeply for children. She chose to pursue a vocation as a childminder, in which her entire day was spent caring for the children of others.

From a psychological perspective, she was, understandably, sensitive to children being harmed. In part, this was informed by the tragic death of her firstborn child, Harry, when he was just 19 months old. The fact that his death happened alongside catastrophic failures in his NHS (as ruled by the coroner), would only add to a sense of distrust of public authorities. It is impossible to come away from such a loss without emotional scarring.

This pre-disposed sensitivity regarding child safeguarding had been triggered multiple times over the following years, in response to national tragedies involving the death of children through acts of terror, such as the Manchester Arena bombing, as well as the sexual exploitation and abuse of young girls as part of the ongoing grooming gangs scandal. Crucially, and relevantly, such atrocities were often carried out by those from particular ethnic and religious backgrounds. Equally of note, is that we now know that the authorities sometimes turned a blind eye because of the ethnic/religious element at play, or withheld information from the public regarding these features.

The fact that successive governments have failed to tackle illegal immigration into the country, with tens of thousands of illegal migrants being allowed in every year, with no proper risk assessment being carried out, again understandably adds to the fears and anxieties of someone like Lucy Connolly, in terms of potential harm being caused to innocent children.

By the time of the horrific Southport attack (in which Axel Rudakubana stabbed three young girls to death), it was clear that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

We live in a world in which much of our day is spent online and the realms of social media act as a substitute for the types of conversation or interaction one would have traditionally had in the pub, for example.

Psychologically, as words communicated online are not uttered in the presence of others, and are simply put out into the ether, there is a certain desensitisation that takes place, in that people will put things in writing behind a screen that they would never consider saying to another’s face. As such, the possibility of regret is far higher when posting something online (and such regret was demonstrated by Lucy Connolly, of her own accord, deleting the tweet later on the same day).

Unfortunately, because what is posted online remains in existence in some form forever (one screenshot is all it takes), this robs people of the chance to demonstrate regret and remorse. If someone utters an offensive word, an apology can be made and the words spoken will have already disappeared into the ether. Not so when something is posted online, as the original post lives on as a never-ending black mark on someone’s character.

This context is important when considering the ramifications of words posted online.

The same applies for those who read such messages. There is a difference between hearing something being shouted at you in-person when you are already part of a large and energised crowd, versus reading something on a social media app. This is relevant when considering whether people are likely to act on words written online. Given that people tend to know that what is posted online generally contains a level of detachment and hyperbole not present in face-to-face interactions, it is highly unlikely that someone will act directly off the back of a post by someone unknown to them.

The Legal

One of the core principles of criminal justice is that not everything that is mean, offensive, ill-spirited or immoral can or should be deemed to be a criminal offence. Otherwise, we would all be behind bars.

For something to be a criminal offence, there needs to be a particularly high degree of harm present.

What Lucy Connolly posted could be considered offensive or disrespectful (she herself has said as much).

On this basis, she could expect and would be deserving of criticism and even judgement for this. Again, I don’t think Lucy Connolly herself would disagree with this.

However, there is gulf between actions deserving of criticism and actions deserving of criminalisation.

Words are not actions. Talking about killing someone has absolutely nothing in common with actually killing someone. It isn’t a spectrum. It isn’t a slippery slope.

Equally, when you criminalise ‘incitement’, you remove agency from individuals. You suggest that people are so impressionable that someone can ‘make them’ do something (without being under duress).

If someone reads online about burning down migrant hotels and then goes and burns down a migrant hotel, the responsibility for that heinous act lies 100% with the arsonist and 0% with the person who posted the suggestion online.

Nobody should ever be criminalised for words alone.

When we consider the sentence of 31 months in prison imposed on Lucy Connolly, the injustice is even more stark.

In the last year alone, an MP who punched a constituent, a parent who killed their child, and multiple sexual abusers, avoided prison.

There are significant numbers of extremely harmful criminal offences that have a lower starting sentence than the one Lucy Connolly received.

These range from animal cruelty to benefit fraud to drink driving to stalking to possession of indecent images of a child to theft to witness intimidation.

Under English sentencing guidelines, a person who sexually assaults a ‘vulnerable victim’ by ‘touching naked genitalia’ and engaging in ‘prolonged detention and humiliation’ is facing a starting sentence of just 1 year in prison.

We also see issues with the legal system, when we consider what led Lucy Connolly to plead guilty.

Had she gone to trial, she would have most likely been acquitted (as demonstrated by the recent acquittal of Ricky Jones who said something far more likely to incite violence than anything Lucy Connolly had written).

There was already pressure on Lucy Connolly to plead guilty as she had been denied bail and was desperate to get home to her family.

Being remanded in custody given the nature of the offence charged appears completely unreasonable. The presumption is that defendants are granted bail unless there are substantial grounds against. Given her clean record, the fact that the offence charged related to a social media post later deleted and given her caring responsibilities at home, the fact she was denied bail seems crazy (though the judicial decision becomes clearer when considering the political context below).

To put this into context, just two weeks ago, footballer Thomas Partey was granted bail on rape charges. Yet, for a tweet, Lucy Connolly was denied bail.

Furthermore, there was pressure on Lucy Connolly to plead guilty in order to avail of the automatic 33% reduction in sentence that comes from a guilty plea. In my view, such an enticement should not exist, as it can place genuinely innocent people in a bind, whereby they will plead guilty to something they haven’t done, in order to avoid the risk of going to trial, being wrongfully convicted, and paying the price with a longer sentence.

For someone like Lucy Connolly, whose sole motivation was to get home to her family, this set-up is wrong.

The Political

There was undoubtedly political interference in the processes and decision-making of the criminal justice system as regards Lucy Connolly.

It is not in dispute that the courts sought to make examples of people in light of the unrest in the aftermath of the Southport attack. As Prime Minister, Keir Starmer had made it clear that he wanted to see swift and harsh justice.

We witnessed this through the way in which the cases of Lucy Connolly and others were fast-tracked through the legal system.

Starmer himself had made a number of worrying comments that could only have had undue influence on a member of the police or judiciary responsible for handling such cases.

Not making a distinction between those engaged in rioting and those posting online, Starmer warned all that they would “face the full force of the law”.

Crucially, he said that “individuals will be held on remand”. This was Starmer prejudicing bail hearings and pre-judging their outcomes. Was the judge who denied Lucy Connolly bail influenced by this instruction of the Prime Minister?

Starmer had also called for “substantive sentencing”, including for those who posted offensive material “whipping up hatred” online. Again, was this a signal to the judiciary that considerable sentences were to be expected?

Although Starmer did not refer directly to Lucy Connolly when making these remarks, they will have had an impact on the handling of her case and others.

It is also relevant to consider the way in which successive governments themselves are to blame for the understandable anger and emotion from members of the public.

Given the political context, can we understand why someone such as Lucy Connolly would seek relief through the writing of an emotive online post?

Children have been raped and even killed in this country, in circumstances that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. There has been a concerted effort over time to label those with concerns about religious fundamentalism or uncontrolled immigration as ‘racist’. Every single day, law-abiding members of the public have to look on as they watch boats carrying hordes of young, undocumented men landing on our shores, only to be welcomed in with open arms by the authorities.

We know from public data that foreign nationals are responsible for up to 23% of all crime and roughly 15% of all sexual offences.

Within the last few weeks we have witnessed charges brought against migrants being housed in hotels for offences including sexual assaults.

With this context, is it understandable why, in a moment of sadness, anger and fear, someone like Lucy Connolly could post something like this? I believe that it is.

More than this, could we argue that those in charge of our country have directly caused the disharmony in society that has led to hostility and division? I believe that we could.

This case has been one great chain of injustice from start to finish. Lucy Connolly should never have been arrested. Once arrested, she should never have been charged. Once charged, she should never have felt pressured to plead guilty. Once she pleaded guilty, she should never have been imprisoned.

Lucy Connolly is but one example of people being punished for exercising what should be considered protected free speech.

We all say and write things that we regret from time to time. I doubt there is anyone amongst us who hasn’t uttered words that were mean, rude or offensive. We are all fallible.

Just hope and pray that, the next time you make a comment you later regret, you don’t find the police knocking at your door.